Re: MD "Patriotism" (was Chomsky)

From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Jul 08 2005 - 16:06:56 BST

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    Arlo,

    A few corrections:

    > Platt demonstrated a bizarre twist to this when his critical analysis of
    > the Supreme Court decision "forced" him to blame liberals for what is, to
    > any willful gaze, a symptom of a system that caters to wealth. Since his
    > Good/Evil dichotomy leaves no room for any critical examination of
    > "republicans", he was left blaming "socialist liberals" for catering to big
    > business. Remember that these are the same people he abhors for using
    > spotted moth habitats to block development. So entrenched is this
    > dichotomy that any real examination of causes, symptoms and abuses by power
    > are absolutely shut out.

    There is agreement among political commentators that five justices on the
    court are liberal and three are conservative with one swing vote,
    O'Conner. I was merely reflecting the common view. Further, unless you
    have evidence to show that the justices were bribed by "big business" into
    voting a certain way, your accusation of "catering to wealth" ought to be
    withdrawn.

    > Another use of this distortive dichotomy would include Platt's
    > comment "Ah, the arrogance of you liberals never ceases to amaze".
    > Conservatives, are of course, not arrogant. In all of these cases, the
    > underlying dialogue is polarized (willfully so, or inadvertantly) into
    > absolutist categories of good and evil.

    To say liberals are arrogant does not say conservatives are not. And yes,
    I do believe there exists absolute evil, the terrorists who bombed London
    being just one example.
     
    And a point of agreement:

    > Personally, I'd prefer if people were
    > able to look beyond "nation-state" boundaries for the "patriotic" support
    > we offer, and looked instead to ideals (so when we say "all men are endowed
    > by their creator with certain unalienable rights", we don't really mean
    > just "all Americans"), but that appears to be something to heretical to
    > advance...

    > And yet, that's just what the MOQ allows us to do... isn't it??
     
    That's why I support our policy in Iraq and the war against terrorism
    throughout the world.

    Platt

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